Monday, 8 April 2013

Welfare slavery reprise

It seems some on the left are actually catching-on. Back in September 2012 I wrote

By
reserving to itself the duty of care of our less fortunate fellows, the
State also creates a barrier to the fulfilment of our own obligations to
our neighbour and community; Welfare measures intended with best
intention to end the human indignity of the Poor Law and the stigma of
poverty have themselves at the start of the 21st century created a
Welfare slavery that condemns entire generations of families to a
culture of idleness and ill health, deprived of the dignity of work and
belonging, alienated from the mutual rewards of citizenship, barred from
fulfilment and deprived of that human solidarity "of the poor among
themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between
employers and employees in a business, solidarity among nations and
peoples ". Surely to God it's time to end their captivity.

Anyone who has lived with or spent time with people capable of working that
have been parked on benefits for a decade or more will know the tragedy I’m
talking about. We should all experience the feeling of satisfaction after a
hard day’s work, the pride at getting a promotion, the sense of achievement
from making a difference in the workplace. But for those trapped in welfare
dependency these experiences will never happen. This is a criminal loss of
human potential and something everyone interested in progressive politics
should rail against.

The welfare state treats people as livestock. The bars to self improvement are as real as barbed wire, fences and hedges to cattle and have been well maintained by the system for over 60 years. Its corrosive effects were noted a long time ago, so the abject failure of our bureaucratic classes is nothing less than enslavement for the purpose of perpetuating their own incomes and lifestyle.

The myriad rules and regulations which the livestock must follow are a mere sideshow to keep the bureaucrats amused during working hours by tormenting any rule breaker they care to pick on.

There is no point in taking measures to encourage people back to work if there is no work for them to go back to. A society which balances its books by excluding large numbers of its citizens from gainful employment should not then demonize them and behave as if their situation is of their own making.

And if they take part-time work, and claim tax credits, they're still demonised as scroungers.Can't win: Won't win.Of course, we could have full employment if people accepted low, or no, wages.Oh wait; No we couldn't.Supply chain economics.

"The entire supply chain is in China now," said another former high-ranking Apple executive. "You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That's the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours."

The problem of unemployment has no resolution except millions of poverty-pay service industry jobs subsidised by government. Rather like thousands of companies are subsidised by government. Think about it. Manufacturing is not "coming back", and in fact is leaving at a higher rate.